VaginaPagina

You should be fine, but don't extend your placebo week - if anything, shorten it up a bit. :)

If you don't miss any pills and you take at least 21 of them, you're still protected for another 7 days with no pills. So normally, no, you don't need to use protection during your placebo week - you're just as protected then as are you when you're taking active pills.

You missed one pill, took it the next day - so that's not perfect use - but you'd already taken 20 of them, right? Anyway, assuming you're on a 21/7 pill, it normally goes 21 active / 7 placebos and repeat. You just did 20 active, 1 day missed, 1 active, then started the placebos. I would say you should count that missed day as one of your placebos, so you should only take 6 of them before you start the active pills for your next pack. Does that make sense?

If you want to make extra sure you're protected going forward, you can use a backup form of BC (like condoms) until you're 7 days into your next pack.

Where are you being told that you need protection during your placebo week? That's not true for any form of the pill, so I wouldn't trust the sources that are telling you that.

In order to put the ovaries to sleep and keep them from ovulating, you need at least 21 days in a row of active pills. Any more than 7 days of sugar pills can result in them waking back up.

Your pill pamphlet should have directions on what to do in this case, although it sounds like you're fine :)